1. Introduction 1.1 Contact

Transcription

1 English Discourse Analysis: An Introduction Rachel Whittaker (Grp 41) Mick O Donnell, Laura Hidalgo (Grp 46) 1.1 Contact Group 46: Mick O Donnell (7 Feb 23 March) Modulo VI bis 311 michael.odonnell@uam.es Laura Hidalgo (30 March 18 May) Modulo VI bis 306 laura.hidalgo@uam.es Course Coordinator: Rachel Whittaker rachel@uam.es Web page (for Mick s part of the course): go to the course page under the department, and click on link. 1

2 1.2 Units (i) Teacher: Mick O Donnell UNIT 1. English Discourse Analysis: an Introduction UNIT 2. Context of Situation: Register (i) : Field, Tenor and Mode UNIT 3. Context of Situation: Register (ii): Written/Spoken Language UNIT 4. Context of Culture: Genre in English; Genre Analysis UNIT 5. The Analysis of Casual Conversation UNIT 6. Structure in Casual Conversation UNIT 7. The Organization of Discourse Structure in English: Theme-Rheme, Thematic Progression 1.2 Units (ii) Teacher: Laura Hidalgo UNIT 8.The Organization of Discourse Content in English: Topic, Macrostructures UNIT 9. Discourse Coherence and the Interpretation of English Discourse: World Knowledge, Schema Theory UNIT 10. The Organization of Information Structure in English Discourse: Given/New Information UNIT 11. Discourse Unity. Resources for Texture in English: Cohesion UNIT Applications of DA in English DIFFERENT AREAS: Critical Discourse Analysis, DA and gender, analyzing news genres, discourse analysis in the teaching of EFL, the advertisement as a genre; advertising language 2

3 1.3 Evaluation 1. A portfolio of texts, analyzed for different features of the discourse during the course. 2. Analysis and interpretation of selection of texts: presentation to class + print version. 3. Final examination, on prepared texts = 40%, 3 = 60% A pass in the exam is necessary for the portfolio and analyses to be considered. Final Exam You are given in advance 3 texts, and weeks to prepare your analyses. In the exam, you are offered 2of the texts, and need to analysejust 1. So ideally, prepare 2 of the 3 texts. You need to analyse: Register (in table form) Genre Other analyses from class, those most appropriate for the given text. Refer to readings. Interpret your analysis 3

4 Cheltenham Cheltenham Fine accommodation and a wide variety of restaurants has been welcoming visitors for three hundred years, ever since the discovery of the first natural spring led to the development of the elegant spa town. is renowned for its Regency architecture, stylish shopping, colourful parks and floral displays, horse racing, music and literature festivals. combine to make Cheltenham Spa an excellent touring base for the Cotswolds. (you) Make our Tourist Information Centre your first call. Our friendly team provide an extensive range of services... We can book accommodation... We supply tickets for local events... In summer, we organise a varied programme of Scenic Coach Tours of the Cotswalds We stock a wide range of maps, walking trails... We can help you with advice on... Premodifiers (remember Lengua II?) Cheltenham has been welcoming visitors for three hundred years, ever since the discovery of the first naturalspring led to the development of the elegantspa town. Cheltenham is renowned for its Regency architecture, stylishshopping, colourfulparks and floraldisplays, horseracing, music and literature festivals. Fineaccommodation and a widevariety of restaurants combine to make Cheltenham Spa an excellent touring base for the Cotswolds. 4

5 Discourse Analysis: Wikipedia: a general term for a number of approaches to analyzing written, spoken, signed language use or any significant semiotic event. Brown and Yule Discourse Analysis In this book we take a primarily linguistic approach to the analysis of discourse. We explain how humans use language to communicate and, in particular, how addressers construct linguistic messages for addressees and how addressees work on linguistic messages in order to interpret them. We call on insights from all of the interdisciplinary areas we have mentioned. But our primary interest is the traditional concern of the descriptive linguist, to give an account of how forms of language are used in communication 5

6 1.8 How does DA relate to Other approaches? areas mentioned their interests their data Sociolinguistics Psycholinguistics Philosophical linguistics Computational linguistics Social interaction in conversation; social context Issues related to language comprehension Semantic rels bet pairs of sentences; relation sentences and the world, truth-values Models of discourse processing transcribed spoken data short constructed texts (textoids) or sequences of written sentences constructed sentences Short constructed texts Stubbs, M Discourse Analysis The term discourse analysis is very ambiguous. I will use it in this book to refer mainly to the linguistic analysis of naturally occurring connected speech or written discourse. Roughly speaking, it refers to attempts to study the organisation of language above the sentence or above the clause, and therefore to study larger linguistic units, such as conversational exchanges or written texts. It follows that discourse analysis is also concerned with language use in social contexts, and in particular with interaction or dialogue between speakers. 6

7 Discourse analysis is sometimes defined as the analysis of language 'beyond the sentence'. This contrasts with types of analysis more typical of modern linguistics, which are chiefly concerned with the study of grammar: the study of smaller bits of language, such as sounds (phonetics and phonology), parts of words (morphology), meaning (semantics), and the order of words in sentences (syntax). Discourse analysts study larger chunks of language as they flow together. Deborah Tannen (From Linguistic Society of America web) Discourse analysis does not presuppose a bias towards the study of either spoken or written language. In fact, the monolithic character of the categories of speech and writing has been widely challenged, especially as the gaze of analysts turns to multi-media texts and practices on the Internet. Stef Slembrouck(DA web page) 7

8 Discourse Analysis: Concerned with whole texts rather than sentences or clauses. Divides into: 1. Spoken Discourse Analysis: study of conversations, dialogues, spoken monologues, etc. 2. Written Discourse Analysis: study of written texts, such as essays, news, political speeches (?), etc. More concerned with naturally occurring data than in made up examples. A collection of techniques, rather than a single analysis. Multimodal Discourse Analysis: Discourse Analysis is not just concerned with the text on the page. MDA explores how multiple modalities (text, image, sound, video) combine to make meaning. What is the meaning of this text? 8

9 Critical Discourse Analysis: The use of discourse analysis techniques to reveal ideological bias, hidden power relations, sexism, racism, etc. in discourse. Names: Kress, Fairclough, van Dijk, Wodak Why Study Discourse Analysis? Why do we study Discourse Analysis? 1. As linguists, to find out how language works, to improve our understanding of an important kind of human activity 2. As educators, to find out how good texts work, so that we can focus on teaching our students these writing/speaking strategies. 3. As critical analists, to discover meanings in the text which are not obvious on the surface (e.g., analysing a politician s speech to see their preconceptions). 9

10 1.7 How does DA relate to Pragmatics? Difficult to answer, since both fields are basically defined by the set of people who work in the field, and their practices. Pragmatics has been a term used to refer all aspects of linguistics which don t fit inside semantics, syntax or phonology While semantics concerns the relation between language and the things language refers to, pragmatics is more about the relationship between language and its users. Thus: pragmatics concerns speech-acts, and what people can infer from language but is not said (implicature, presupositions, indirect speech acts). But generally concerned with choices in individual utterance, not patterns of choices throughout a discourse. 1.7 How does DA relate to Pragmatics? It is plain that discourse analysis has objectivesthat lie very close to, if not shared by, those of pragmatics. This is because discourse is none other than a sequence of sentences in operation -in other words utterances. But while discourse analysts explain the interpretation of the elements in question without going outside language, pragmatics resorts to other ambits of human activity(beliefs, feelings, knowledge, intentions ). (Pragmatics and discourse analysis, by Margarida Bassols Puig) 10

11 Approaches to the study of language+ data used Internal approach: looking for internal rules that native speakers use to generate grammatically correct sentences Isolated sentences Grammatically well-formed Without context Invented or idealised External approach: asking how we use language to communicate Any stretch of language felt to be unified Achieving meaning In context Observed 1.7 How does DA relate to Pragmatics? BOTH DA and PRAGMATICS TAKE AN EXTERNAL APPROACH Pragmatics [is] a general cognitive, social, and cultural perspective on linguistic phenomena in relation to their usage in forms of behaviour. (Verschueren, 1999: 7) 11

12 12